Flash Play #25

The devil and Erika, in pajamas with sodden boots, stand beside a wide, shallow pothole. She wields a shovel and lays and packs gravel.
Devil: Let it rest, lady.
Erika doesn’t respond, but keeps laying gravel. The devil remains for a few moments, watching. Fatima enters, also wearing pajamas and sodden boots. She carries a shovel full of gravel. The devil notices her, watches Erika look up and pause. The devil reaches for Erika’s shovel, but Erika snatches it away.
Erika: Give a hand or back off. That’s the deal with the devil I’ll make.
Fatima dumps the gravel near Erika’s work. Erika uses the gravel. Fatima exits where she entered. Fatima enters with more gravel, and helps the work. The work should be honestly difficult.
Fatima: I have a story.
Erika: Let’s hear it.
Fatima: It involves injustice.
Erika: Then now is better than later.
Fatima: I told my boss that he was wrong and he fired me.
Erika: What was he wrong about and how did you tell him?
Fatima: Is that really relevant? Should anyone be fired for disagreeing with their boss?
Erika: Details are what make a story a story.
Fatima: A led an insurrection of heaven because god was messing up.
Erika: You want to chime in?
Devil: Isn’t that always the way of it? Bosses think they’re pretty all-fired unimpeachable. Holier than thou, do-no-wrong, omniscient.
Fatima: Yep. Bosses are the worst.
Devil: If I were in charge, I wouldn’t have put all that nonsense about stoning people in any part of the bible. And I’d forgive them without killing anybody, even myself embodied in my son. And that whole thing about treating men and women differently would be out the window. God, God’s a misogynist.
Erika: Super true. If you manifest a shovel, you can help.